Things I need to remember:

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The biggest fucker of a… well, right now I’m in a state and can’t think of the stupid word…

We’re told to speak, to voice our opinions, to not be afraid of telling someone how we feel; we decide to be brave, to speak, to let our voice be heard, to make our feelings known; and then we remember why we choose not to speak, to make our opinions known, or to explain how we feel.

Yeap.  In the space of two or three days I’ve severely fucked off two important people in my life, and as I sit here in tears, trying to breath properly rather than hyperventilate, all I can think is “and that is why you don’t do people, you stupid bitch.”

I feel useless, as if I don’t belong; society isn’t a place for me.  I’ve tried to be so brave, to socialise, to open up and go against every instinct in my body that tells me to run and hide.  Now I just want to run and hide more.

Why do I bother interacting and trying to be ‘normal’, when it just blows up in my fucking face?

Fuck you earthquakes. Fuck you PTSD.

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I wish I had their innocence…

 

It’s 1.02am and I have been trying to sleep for… well, a long time now.  I was quite sleepy at some point, but then some process kicked in in my brain and the next thing I knew I was lying there remembering details – vivid details – of  the earthquakes that have stuck in my mind.

I went from drowsy and happily falling asleep to remembering the earthquake on Christmas Eve 2011.  I was at the mall with Mum, Gaby & Emmy when all of a sudden the world began shaking.  Again.  We were in the food court and all around us could here glass items breaking, chairs scraping, screams and cries from children and adults alike.  The lights went off the emergency siren sounded; we all made a rush to the exit.  Santa was there too.  Gaby was worried about Santa, considering he hadn’t been through an earthquake before.  Mum & I?  We were trying to keep it together, trying to be a good example for the kids; in reality it was Gaby who had it more together than the two of us put together.

Afterward we were able to go to the car – in the parking building – almost as soon as I started the car there was another god almighty shake and I lost it.  We were out of the car and back out in the open before I could even register what was happening.  A bus arrived at the bus stop across from the mall and we took it home.  There was a quake while we were on the bus; all I could think of was the people who’d died in the bus during the Feb 22 quake.  We made it home, well, to Mum and Dad’s.  Throughout the day there were more quakes and my nerves became severely frayed.

I made it home, I guess Mum or Dad dropped us off.  I remember vividly because I was talking to the woman who at the time, I considered my best friend… you may have heard of her, she goes by the name of Lauriel.  She was at her ex-husband’s for the night (as a separated parent you do all manner of crazy ass thing in the name of doing what is best for your kids) and had hacked into his WiFi password.  He had no idea we were IM’ing on Skype, and we thought it was hilarious.  Just before midnight I decided I had better go to bed, but knew there was no way in hell I would be getting to sleep unaided.  I took two codeine, knowing full well it makes me drowsy.

It didn’t take long before I felt sleepy enough to go to bed.  I logged off, I went to the toilet, brushed my teeth, walked through the kitchen and lounge to my bedroom.  I put my hand on the door frame to steady myself because I was a bit wobbly.  And then there was another fucking earthquake.  It was pitch black, the house was shaking… and there I was, a total fucking blithering idiot of a mess.  I text Lauriel and told her there had been another quake.  She text with me until I fell asleep.

My mind then took me to February 22, 2011.  THE EARTHQUAKE.  I could vividly remember the colour of the sky.  It was overcast.  Looked like rain.  It was a muddy grey colour… you could feel rain in the air, it just hadn’t quite arrived.  I can remember the terror I felt when THE quake stopped.  I was on auto pilot.  “OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD” I hyperventilated to myself as I picked Emersyn up from the middle of the floor, took my keys and went out to my car.  Backing down the driveway there was another quake.  I had to stop to regain composure, or at least the last tiny thread of it that remained.

I don’t know how I got there, but I was suddenly just down the road from Mum’s work (a supermarket).  There was another shake and I had stopped the car because I was hyperventilating and bawling at the same time.  A man who was walking along the footpath stopped to ask if I was okay.  I told him I wasn’t; he told me neither was he.  Composure regained once again, I drove the rest of the way to Mum’s work.  I parked.  I found her.  We hugged.  We cried.  We couldn’t let go of one another.

There ground was wet with wine.  Red.  White.  Rosé.  Cheap.  Expensive.  The earthquake didn’t care which, bottles were thrown to the ground in the violent shake, glass smashing, wine everywhere.  I hate to think how many dollars worth of wine was all over the floor, and the ground outside.

I remembered the panic as I tried to get to Gaby’s preschool.  I had to take a lot of detours due to flooding and roads being completely fucked.  I got there.  The kids were all sitting outside in the under 2’s playground area.  Gaby cried when she saw me.  But not because of the quake… because she didn’t want to go home, not when she’d only been there an hour!  I hugged that little girl so tightly.  I told myself I was hugging her to comfort her, but I know that in reality it was her comforting me.

Then I was back at my parents.  Outside with mum, in a state of… well, there is no word for it really.  Dad arrived home.  We were all safe and sound.

“Well, I almost died”.  The first words from Dad’s mouth.  Words I will never forget.  I can remember the tone with which he spoke them.  I can remember the look on his face.  I can remember the way my gut dropped.  I can remember the look of shock on Mum’s face, no doubt mirrored by my own.  He went on to tell us that he had just walked past the CTV building when it collapsed.  That he had had an appointment with his doctor – in the CTV building – an hour before the quake struck.  That he had had to choose between leaving a seminar early to get the earlier appointment, or to go after the seminar, at around 12.30.

My Dad made one seemingly mundane, inconsequential decision… he decided to be naughty and leave his seminar early.  In doing that… he avoided dying that day.  He made sure we didn’t get to experience the worst grief possible.  One little decision, one little choice, one tiny decision that was part of whatever else was going on that day.

And he could have died.

I still can’t get my head around that one.  I can’t fathom… I cry whenever I think about it.

One.  Little.  Decision.

————————————

I snuck out here to write this blog post.  Lauriel was sound asleep and I didn’t want to disturb her.  Naturally she caught me in the act.  Rather than saying “it’s almost 1.30, what the hell are you doing up?”, she simply told me “take your time baby, do what you’ve got to do“, kissed me, and went back to bed.

That was possibly the most reassuring, loving thing I could have been told.  She understands me.  She understands my thought process.  She understands that healing doesn’t happen overnight, more importantly she understands that perhaps healing is never complete and is instead an ongoing process.  Something we develop tools to cope with, but are never truly ‘over’.

Yay for that 99%!

Back from the doctor and as 99% expected, she is pretty sure the lump isn’t anything serious.  It is on the ‘non-boob’ side of the armpit and is most likely a blocked duct or hair follicle which will hopefully go away with antibiotic cream.  If it doesn’t go away with the cream it will likely turn into an abcess, I am most certainly hoping for the ‘go away’ outcome.homer_woohoo

Now I can stop worrying and make the most of what is going to be an awesome week, with my sister and niece arriving on Wednesday!  I  haven’t seen them for almost two years and cannot explain how excited I am about seeing them!

Yay for good updates!

So, I found a lump.

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For over 18 months I experienced horrendous anxiety, mainly focused on my health.  I had myself convinced I had cancer.  First it was liver cancer, then it was cervical cancer, then it was stomach cancer, then I was back to liver cancer – and on it went.

Then I began seeing my psychologist and after a few months that specific aspect of my anxiety went away.  It has probably been about a year now since I last thought “oh god, my ____ hurts, I must have cancer!“.  I have been very proud of myself and you have no idea how much lighter I feel without that constant (irrational!) fear bogging me down each day.

And then on Saturday I found a lump.  An actual lump that is really there.  It’s in my armpit.

Initially I had the familiar sensation of adrenalin coursing through my body as my brain yelled out ‘you have cancer!  you actually have cancer!’, and tears quickly followed.

Then I remembered that it was only last week I had routine blood tests done that included a complete blood count, and considering I hadn’t heard from the doctor 10 days later, I took this as a good sign.  Surely if something was wrong, my white blood cells would have been through the roof.  (Right???)

I also remembered that for the past few days before that my neck felt a little sore on and off, like it does when I am getting a virus or infection… it has happened since I was a kid.

I am 99% sure that little lump is nothing.  Or that it’s nothing serious, at least.  There are moments in the day that I am hit by that 1% of doubt though, and that nasty adrenalin rushes through me, leaving me feeling a bit panicked.

If this had happened a year ago I would have been a blithering mess all bloody weekend, and I have to say I am quite proud of myself for only being mildly worried.

Needless to say I am going to the doctor this morning to get it checked out.  Hopefully I get the (eventual) result I expect – it is nothing.  But in the case it is something, at least I’ll have caught it early, which is a good thing… and more to the point, if it is something, I’ll get through it – my wife will give me no choice but to!

I needed to blog this to get the words out, which is really the whole purpose of this blog.  If you took the time to read, thank you!

(now I better go and get dressed…)

“Let’s go on a roadtrip” they said…

You know how sometimes you get an idea and you know it’s going to blow up in your face, but there is a small chance it might actually work out splendidly and that small chance is enough to make you go for it?  Also known as a ‘<enter activity here> they said, it’ll be fun they said’ moment.  Well, we had us one of those on Tuesday; it went a little something like this:

“So where is the Hawke’s Bay game on Saturday?”
“Napier”
“Hmm, we could go… take all the kids, make a day of it!”
“We could…”
“We should…”
“We really should!”
“Let’s do it!”
*excited giggling ensues*

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Us in October 2012, our first trip to Napier

On Wednesday ‘make a day of it‘ turned into ‘we could always stay the night‘.
This morning after a friends invitation to stay, ‘could stay the night‘ turned into ‘we will stay the night‘.
… and there is the potential for it to turn into two nights.

Yeap.  We, of [supposedly] sound mind are taking our four lovely (read: crazy) children on a 3 hour roadtrip to watch some rugby and explore Napier.  For a whole weekend.  A whole week.end. Whooooooole weekend.

Napier is a very special place for Lauriel and I – it is the first place we went away to together on a roadtrip – and I love that we’re going to have a chance to share it with our children.

I remember as a kid it was always so exciting to know we were going away for a weekend, especially if it was somewhere we didn’t often go (for us that place was Christchurch, Dunedin or Queenstown)… and I want our kids to have that same excitement!  Eloise is already extremely excited about going – and if you have a tween or teen, you’ll know what a joy it is to see them excited about something; especially something related to spending time with you!  Gabrielle and Aidan are also excited… to the extent they have decided they’re going to get up at 5.30am so we can leave as soon as humanly possible.  Emersyn is Emersyn.  As long as we are there, as long as Eloise is there, she is happy.

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At the game we went to on our Napier trip

The kids don’t know that we are now leaving tomorrow as our original plan was to leave on Saturday morning.  Okay, this is going to result in tears from Gabrielle (how dare we make her miss a day of school?!) but I’m sure she will get over it by the time we are at McDonalds having breakfast *rolls eyes* (yeah, I stupidly promised McD’s as a treat for breakfast).

I’m not too sure what we’re going to do in Napier, but one thing is for sure, we’ll be checking out the Skeinz shop!  I hear there is a magical bin there that I simply have to check out!  Speaking of knitting, because Lauriel is doing the driving I will be able to do lots of knitting on the trip there and back!  Might even be able to get my niece’s Unadorned knit over that time!

Okay.  I said the kids are excited, but really… I am bloody excited.  I cannot wait to get away with my beautiful family for a whole weekend… it’s been so long since Lauriel and I went away and even longer since we went away with the kiddos.

On a more serious note: this is going to be a big test for my anxiety.  As I’ve posted before, one of my major anxiety issues is with being a passenger in a car driving long distances.  I am feeling a lot more relaxed about it than I would have this time a year ago and am actually considering emailing my psychologist to let him know just how far out of my comfort zone I’m stepping.  Sure, it might be a different story tomorrow morning, but all I know is I can do this and I will do this.

UPDATE: this is now a full weekend trip…. two nights away it is!

Keep on knittin’ on!

It has been close enough to two months since I last posted (oops).  My lack of posting hasn’t been related to a lack of crocheting or knitting, in fact, completely the opposite!  I have been knitting so much lately that I haven’t had any time to blog (that and university has started back so I’m into the swing of the academic thing of things).

I have been knitting up a storm!  To be honest, I don’t think I have picked up a crochet hook since around the last time  I blogged on here; this knitting thing, it is addictive!

It isn’t just addictive though, it has also proven to be a big internal struggle and challenge for me.  When I f*ck up it is a battle between ‘do I just put this down and pretend it never happened‘ or ‘do I keep on at it and not let it get the better of me‘?  Once upon a time the answer would have been to get rid of it and move onto something new, but that’s the old Emma – or at least I like to think it is.

Looking back, giving up so easily might have had something to do with my anxiety.  If I didn’t try, I couldn’t fail, right?  Stupid thinking really, because not trying is like instant failure, or at least that is how I see it now, anyway.  My anxiety disorder seems to be nicely under control at the moment and I am finding that has given me more confidence in most areas of my life, but particularly my study.

I haven’t stressed once over assignments, I’ve just gone ahead and done them (76% in my first 300 level assignment, thank you very much!)… I’m also doing this odd thing called planning.  I’m not sure if you’ve heard about it, but from the age of 5-ish you are told to ‘plan ahead’ for your school/uni/etc work.  After…. god, 26? years of schooling I have finally realised that planning is where it’s at.  Maybe I should make more people aware of this magical idea?

Anyway, before I leave you all to go and do some of that planning stuff I spoke about, I thought I’d leave some photos of my latest projects!

Colin vest

Colin vest

Zanny T jumper

Zanny T jumper

Fish 'n' Chip jumper (little sister of the Zanny T)

Fish ‘n’ Chip jumper (little sister of the Zanny T)

Simply Soft cowl

Simply Soft cowl (for me, but modelled by Emmy)

Seaweed cowl

Seaweed cowl

baby hat

baby hat

In case any of you are interested in the patterns for the above items, here you go!

Colin vest

Zanny T jumper

Fish ‘n’ Chip jumper

Simply Soft cowl

Seaweed cowl

These are the days I hate the most

I need to remind myself of this

I need to remind myself of this

Today has been the type of day that leaves me feeling exhausted and on edge – mentally, physically, emotionally – the type of day that seems to last triple the time of a normal day.

What exactly is this type of day?

It’s the type of day when I wake up feeling uneasy and don’t really know why.  One minute I feel sad and don’t know why, the next I feel over excited and don’t know why.  One minute I’m happy and the next I am a grumpy bitch taking it out on everyone else.  I spend a lot of time in bed on these days.  Time feeling sorry for myself and picking apart every. single. little. thing. I hate about who I am.  Usually a lot of that time is spent feeling like a failure for whatever reason, feeling like I don’t deserve my wife, my children, my family, my friends.  Rather than being proud of myself for ______________ I beat myself up for ____________; usually the thing I beat myself up over is something old, something in the past, something I haven’t thought about in years.  It makes no sense whatsoever, but I can’t shake it from my thoughts.

My wife calls this the spiral of doom.  One thing leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another… and results in me wishing I could bash my head against a wall.

And that is what I do sometimes.  Yeap.  One of my not-so-good coping mechanisms is to bang my head against the wall.  I remember doing this as a child, I remember doing this as a teen and I still do it as an adult when I’m at my worst.  Lauriel tells me off for this and pretty much physically restrains me.  I am grateful she does because the last thing I need is to knock myself unconscious.  Then there is the biting.  If I’m not banging my head against the wall – literally – I am biting myself.  Usually my hand or my forearm.  I’m not sure if this is considered self-harm but I cannot control it.  I get angry/upset/whatever, begin to shake, then my hand/arm goes up to my mouth and I bite as hard as I can.  I think it’s a way to try and snap myself out of it, or perhaps a way to let out my frustration in a way that is safer than punching a window or smashing things.

Yes, today is one of those days.  I cannot pin my finger on exactly why I am feeling this way, I think it is a combination of things.

* I had to go for a cervical smear, this triggered my health anxiety (I have myself convinced my results will come back showing something is wrong), but also some memories of the sexual abuse I suffered in my early 20’s…
* I had to see the doctor for my six monthly review for my meds and ended up coming out of it on a higher dose of antidepressants, leading me to feel like a failure for needing even more help.
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Okay, those are probably the two main things that have triggered my mood today; but those things have – as happens on the spiral of doom – left me feeling ‘blah’ about almost everything else.

I hate these days because they come out of the blue and usually after days of feeling really good, and positive.  They just strike and knock me off my feet… no matter how often I tell myself tomorrow I will feel better, that it is just temporary, I still feel as if I am deeeeeep in the depths of *whatever this is* and that I’m going to feel this way forever.

I think this is the hard part about dealing with depression and taking measures to improvie it.  When everyday is a depressed day you don’t really notice just how bad you feel, but when most of your days are good days (finally, yay!) the odd bad day you do have feels 100x worse than you are used to feeling.

I guess that days like this could be viewed as being a complete and utter bastard, but a more positive way to look at them is probably to think of how far I have come and that I now have a new normal.

Separation anxiety… anxious parent style

Yeap.  That's me!

Yeap. That’s me!

There is a lot of literature out there about separation anxiety in children… but not so much in adults.  I wish there was because I am suffering badly from it right now.

Emersyn is going to be spending this weekend with her dad, step-mum, sister and aunty.  I am very excited for her and am glad she has this opportunity, but it is not doing any wonders for my anxiety levels.  I have mentioned before that one of my anxiety triggers is being the passenger in a car on the open road… but it seems the idea of one of my children being a passenger in a car on the open road is also a trigger.

I know the anxiety isn’t rational.  I completely trust her dad both as far as caring for her goes, and as far as being a driver goes… but that doesn’t

The cheeky littlest love of my life

The cheeky littlest love of my life

stop my brain from doing horrible horrible things.  Over the past couple of weeks I have imagined Emersyn dying in a crash, Emersyn being in a crash where she is the only survivor and has no one to hold her or kiss her or tell her it will be okay.  I have imagined her in hospital in a coma, in hospital with a cast from the neck down, I have imagined being in hospital with her and being told she is now a quadriplegic.

The closer I get to saying goodbye the faster my heart beats and the harder it becomes to breathe.  I just have to think about her leaving and my heart races and a feeling of impending doom descends over me.  I wish to hell that I could stop it because it isn’t a nice thing to have to live with, I don’t like thinking those thoughts, I don’t like lying in bed wondering how I will tell Eloise, Gabrielle & Aidan that their sister is dead or severely injured.  I don’t like thinking about how the hell I would break such news to my parents or sister.

I do this, you see.  I convince myself that something terrible is going to happen, when in reality I know it is my brain doing some crazy shit I

can’t explain and that in all likelihood nothing will happen.  People always say ‘she/it/you will be fine’ and my automatic response is ‘how do you know?’… I think it’s fair enough of me to say that, because really, how do they know everything is going to be okay, but when I flip it around… of course they would say that.  They are living in reality.  They know that there is only a tiny little chance of something terrible happening.  They can tell me everything will be okay because they know that everything will be.

This anxiety isn’t constant, but it is always in the background fighting for my attention.  The moment my attention waivers for one tiny second, boom, hello bad thoughts, hello thoughts of a little coffin, hello thoughts of never seeing my precious little munchkin again.  It was so bloody hard to send her to preschool today because my brain kept telling me ‘hey, this might be your last full afternoon with her… ever… ever ever!‘.  In return I freak out.  I panic.  I decide maybe I’ll just refuse to ever let any of my children out of my sight again.

Yeah, we are talking REALLY rational thoughts here folks.

The build up tends to be the hardest for me so I am hoping that the weekend will go quickly for me and that I can focus on what is happening rather than what could potentially happy if a man 300km away has a beer with his lunch then decides to drive and just so happens to go through an intersection without looking and crashes into the car Emersyn is travelling in.

I feel so vulnerable right now.  Ready to crack, ready to fall to pieces… I feel like a child who has bad nightmares, only I can’t seem to wake up from this mental nightmare of mine…

That about sums it up

That about sums it up

Thanks for saving me from myself! Here, have a shawl.

Dear Wife...

Dear Wife…

 

How the hell do you thank the person who saved you from yourself?

I feel as though I wasn’t Lauriel’s wife for the first part of this year, rather I was the fifth child in the household.  I will probably always feel guilty for the way she had to prop me up over the first part of this year, mentally, emotionally, even sometimes physically while I cried.

How do you thank the person who lay in bed with you for hours while you cried?  How do you thank the person who told you repeatedly you weren’t stupid, an idiot, a moron, a waste of space.  How do you thank the person who put up with your mood swings?  How do you thank the person who didn’t yell back when you yelled at her?  How do you thank the person who essentially provided all the care for your children for a period of months?  How do you thank the person who always put you first and her kids last?

If you are me you shower that person with gifts of crochet.

Yeah, not exactly a fair trade is it?  You stopped me having a mental breakdown, here, have a capelet! And a shawl!

I feel as if I have nothing I can give, nothing that really explains or demonstrates just how grateful I am to have such an amazing woman in my life.  But I can crochet.  I can make her things.  I know a shawl or a capelet or… well, anything crocheted doesn’t seem like a big deal, but there is so much time and effort that goes in to each item.  More than that there is love.

While I am making something for her I find it impossible to not think about how lucky I am to have her, how lucky my kids are to have her, how lucky the world is to have her.  It takes a very special person to put themselves last and to spend so much time trying to reassure someone that they do matter, that their feelings are important… when most of the time it probably feels like talking to a brick wall.

One day I will find a way to truly thank her… but until then she will have to make do with a LOT of crocheted items…

A LOT.

“What’s wrong?” … I *really* don’t know!

originalOne of the things I hate the most about suffering from depression and anxiety, is my inability to explain exactly what is wrong when I am in one of my depressive or anxious phases.  I think it is something that other people suffering from depression and anxiety understand, but for those lucky enough not too it can be so hard to verbalise what’s going in in your brain.

Usually I can’t pinpoint WHAT is wrong.  All I know is that ten minutes ago I felt fine and now I feel as if my brain is shutting off, there is a huge foggy haze clouding mood, and where I was laughing not long ago, now all I feel like doing is lying on the floor and crying.  My common response when Lauriel asks me what is wrong is “I just feel blah” or “my brain is being stupid”, because 99% of the time there is no reason for my need to cry, or my sudden attack of the ‘I suck’s.  I wish there was, it would make life so much easier.

I have started trying to pay attention to what is going on around me when I can feel that foggy haze starting to close in, but usually there is nothing different happening.  No one has pissed me off, no one has upset me, I haven’t received bad news, I’m not waiting for an important phone call, I’m not worried about a friend or family member.  My brain just does this thing where it decides I have been happy for too long, and that I need a bit of a reality check.  I need to be reminded that no matter how good I am feeling, anxiety and depression are always there in the background, just waiting for the right seemingly invisible trigger to set them off.large

I experienced one of those ‘attacks’ today.  I was fine, laughing with Lauriel, feeling perfectly happy.  And then I was in this deep dark cave of shitty emotions and could not find my way out.  She asked what was wrong and I shrugged as I said “I don’t know”, and then wished like hell I could tell her something specific so we could work out a way to fix it.

When I get into this state I seem to instinctively take Lauriel’s hand and lead her to the bedroom.  We get in bed, I bury my face in her chest and the tears come.  I happen to think I am very lucky because now that I am medicated and dealing with the stupid chemical imbalance in my brain, I start to feel better quickly.  It’s as if by the simple act of cuddling me Lauriel is recharging my mental/emotional batteries.  She lets me feel whatever I am feeling (something I think IS important) and has never minimised what I’m going through.  I have never heard the words ‘just get over it’ from her, and I think that is something that helps me a lot.

We lie down.  I cry.  I stop crying.  I talk about how screwed up my brain feels.  I cry some more.   She makes me laugh.  I cry some more.  She makes me laugh.  I start feeling incredibly grateful that I have someone so amazingly understanding to go through this with.

I hate that I can’t tell her exactly why I feel sad, why I am freaking out about a headache, why I am worried about Emersyn going on a preschool trip, why I’m not laughing at something I would usually laugh at; but for some reason she understands that and lets me go through my own little selfish process until I feel with it enough to actually get out of bed and attempt to resume normal life.

Those of you who have a loved one who suffers from depression… try not to take it personally when they tell you they don’t know what’s wrong, or can’t go into specifics, because chances are they can’t.  Do love on that person though.  Do hug them.  Do kiss them.  Do let them cry.  You may feel like something as simple as holding them while they cry isn’t very helpful, but believe me, it makes a LOT more difference than you will ever know!

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